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In year’s past, the North Branch boys tennis team had a tough time event scoring individual points against Chisago Lakes on the court.

While the Wildcats still came away with the 5-2 win in the annual county clash, it was a much more competitive match than it had been recently.

Thomas Gillach kept his sterling season going with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Bryant Meyer at first singles.

At second singles, North Branch senior Trenton Corbett battled against Aron Johnson’s length and came away with the 6-3, 7-5 victory.

At third singles, Wildcat Drew Hanson beat Yoobin Kim 6-1, 6-0 to get the ‘Cats their second quick point.

At fourth singles, Augie Brown of Chisago Lakes and T.J. Reis of North Branch were locked in a first set battle. Brown ended up winning 7-6 (7-4) in tiebreak, and with all the momentum going towards Brown, he won 6-0 in the second set.

In the doubles portion of the match, Will Anderson and Evan Ginter of Chisago Lakes beat George Blackwell and Hunter Newman 6-2, 6-4 in a competitive match.

At second doubles, Josh Hindt and Thomas Wurdemann had a great match with Bailey Olson and Matt Jerrard.

Jerrard and Olson won the first set 6-4, and each point was close throughout. In the second set, Wurdemann and Hindt reversed fortunes and won 6-3 to push the match to a tiebreaking third set.

In that race to 10, Wurdemann and Hindt kept rolling and won 10-6 to earn a doubles point for the Vikings.

In third doubles, Chisago Lakes’ Ben Polsfuss and Isaac Aldrich beat North Branch’s Brady Swanson and Gabe Zderad 6-1, 6-2.

“Although we lost, we had  a complete team effort, with great leadership from the seniors and a lot of fight from my younger players,” North Branch Head Coach Joel Santjer said. “We hope to finish strong this week before heading into sections this weekend.”

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